In 2014, as he was heading into his senior year at Fordham College at Rose Hill, Kim worked with his brothers Dylan and Elliott to design and create a camera bag that could double as an everyday backpack.

Six years later, what started as passion project has turned into Brevite, a direct-to-consumer company that is expected to bring in more than $3 million in revenue in 2020. And earlier this month, the company’s success earned the brothers a spot on Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” list of the top young entrepreneurs in retail and e-commerce.

The idea for their company came to the Kim brothers after Dylan was looking for a bag he could use to carry his school books and keep his camera gear safe.

“It turns out nobody made products like this,” said Kim, who began thinking about how best to design the kind of bag his brother wanted. “I started with sketches. And then I started making cardboard mock-ups.” He even bought a used sewing machine at a thrift shop, taught himself to sew, and created a few samples before hiring someone to prototype the bags.

From Prototype to Production

Shortly after they had a few samples, Kim said he decided to join the Fordham Foundry, the University’s hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, to learn more about how to move from prototype to production and turn their project into a business. In January 2015, after talking to people at the Foundry, the brothers launched a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $30,000. They contracted with their first supplier and began selling the specially designed camera backpacks directly to consumers.

Over the next three years, Brevite began slowly taking off while the brothers were still in school. After graduating from Fordham, Kim enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned a master’s degree in design. Instead of seeking venture capital funding, the brothers bootstrapped the company through campaigns and competitions, such as the Ram’s Den Competition, the Fordham Foundry’s annual alumni pitch event, which Brevite won in 2018.

Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, executive director of the Fordham Foundry, has worked with Kim in recent years. He said that Kim and his brothers understood that launching and growing their business would take hard work.

“It’s nice to see [that work]come to fruition and see Brandon and his brothers really fulfilling their dream and making it happen.” He said that entrepreneurship has gotten a “glamorous rap” lately, with some people thinking, “I go to college, and while I’m in college … I get a venture capitalist to write me a check for a million dollars, and then the next thing I know, I’m retiring on an island somewhere. And that’s kind of not the way that it really works. And Brandon and his brothers understand that.”

Kim said that 2018 was a pivotal year for Brevite. In addition to winning the Ram’s Den competition and completing internships and degree programs, he and his brothers decided to fully invest their time and energy in growing the company.

“We were like, ‘All right, what are we doing here? It’s just taking up all this time, and we’ve got no time for anything else.’ So we finally just were like, ‘OK, we’re gonna do this.’”

Two years later, “the business is totally different than when we started out,” Kim said. “Taking it up to seven figures required a complete revamp,” including branching out to design backpacks for general consumers, in addition to photographers.

Fordham Foundry: A Hub for Innovation

Kim said that his decision to join the Fordham Foundry in 2015 helped him and his brothers connect with like-minded entrepreneurial students and gain a base of knowledge and insight about how the startup community operates and how to run a business.

“The people running [the Foundry]are very practical and they’re very accomplished in their own entrepreneurial careers. And then on top of that, they just give really great advice on how to build a business, not necessarily companies but businesses,” he said, emphasizing that the skills and lessons learned go beyond just forming a singular organization.

Bartosic said that the Foundry serves all students, regardless of their major, and provides a space for students and alumni to test, grow, and try out their ideas, with the backing of a supportive community.

“We offer, hopefully, an environment where it’s safe to talk about your ideas, and it’s OK to fail,” he said. “I think that generationally, everybody wants to look cool on Instagram—my life is perfect, and everything is great. … And that’s just not the way that life works. Entrepreneurship really forces you to face that. As long as you’ve got someone that’s supporting you and saying, ‘It’s OK [to fail], or here, let’s try to learn what you did, so you don’t do it again’—those are the kinds of services we provide.”

Over the past few years, the Foundry has grown to provide resources ranging from roundtable discussions to one-on-one mentorship. In addition, the Foundry works with the Gabelli School of Business school to offer two courses—Launch Your Startup and the Startup Venture Experience.

Kim has been a part of the Foundry’s growth since he graduated from Fordham. He was an entrepreneur-in-residence for about 18 months, providing advice, mentorship, and guidance to students who were interested in launching their businesses, and he currently serves on the Foundry’s alumni council.

He said his favorite piece of advice to students is to stay in school and get their degree, instead of dropping out to pursue their idea full time. “Get your degree, do your degree,” he said with a laugh.

He also advises students to take advantage of the Foundry’s mentoring programs and connections. And he encourages alumni who are entrepreneurs to get involved with the Foundry, too, particularly through its alumni council.

“I think the Foundry is a fantastic resource. I think it’s heavily underutilized,” he said. “I think student founders should certainly go to the Foundry [and]even like if they’re not interested in founding companies, but they’re interested in startups, it’s a great place to go.”

A TV producer covers Brexit, OPEC, the French elections, and Vladimir Putin

As Bloomberg TV executive producer for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Annmarie Hordern oversees a team of about a dozen producers from Dubai to London, where she’s based. They’ve produced programming on a wide range of topics, from Brexit to OPEC to the French elections.

“Last night we did four hours of breaking news with the numbers coming out,” she said by phone the day after the first round of the French presidential vote. She enjoys the fast-paced work. “You’re thinking as quickly as you can on your feet about how you’re going to tell that story.”

The Long Island native said it’s an “amazing time” to be in Europe. “It just seems like there are never-ending interesting stories to cover that will really have an affect on our future.”

Last November, Hordern was at the OPEC meeting in Vienna when the group decided to cut its oil production for the first time in eight years. OPEC is one of her favorite stories to cover, she said, in part because of the major potential impact of the work. “Any news we end up reporting,” she said, “could move the price of oil or other assets.”

Perhaps Hordern’s biggest story was Bloomberg’s exclusive interview with Vladimir Putin in September 2016, just before the U.S. elections. As the producer, Hordern handled the many logistical issues that come with producing content for several outlets, including Bloomberg Businessweek. “It’s about trying to work as one global team,” said Hordern, who also went to Tehran to cover Iran’s elections in May.

This year, Hordern was named to Forbes’ “30-Under-30 Europe” list for media. When she was under 20, she got her start as student reporter at WFUV, Fordham’s public media station.

“When I went to Fordham I wanted to be a lawyer. That was before I stepped foot into [WFUV News and Public Affairs Director] George Bodarky’s office,” she said. She realized she’d been bitten by the journalism bug “the first time they sent me out with a mult box and a mic.”

Bodarky said Hordern “was on a path to greatness from day one. It’s just who she is.” He recalled her first feature, about a couple that exchanged vows in a shark tank. “She won two feature awards for that piece.”

While at Fordham Hordern interned for Charlie Rose, which proved fortuitous. “He tapes at Bloomberg TV,” she said. With a little help from an FUV alumna at Bloomberg who passed on her resume, Hordern started working at Bloomberg TV in New York the summer after graduation. “I was a production assistant. … Slowly they would give me more responsibility, and I said yes to everything.”

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.